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All Blacks prop Karl Tu'inukuafe reveals back pain almost drove him to retire

Karl Tu'inukuafe has revealed that he considered retiring from rugby due to back pain, but ultimately chose to stay in the game and was rewarded with an All Blacks call-up. The Blues prop's rise in recent weeks has been meteoric, with the 30-year-old making his Test debut just five months after making his Super Rugby debut at the start of 2018.

I was out of whack, like my alignment was all wrong
All Blacks and Blues front-rower Karl Tu’inukuafe has admitted he was struggling mentally while dealing with two bulging discs in his lower back. The 24-year-old former Waikato hooker was an unused replacement for Saturday’s 33-18 loss to New Zealand in Auckland and said scans taken during a rest week showed he had pinched nerves on both sides of his spine.

I had never been so far in debt
All Blacks prop Karl Tu'inukuafe was in $1 million worth of debt after being supercharged by a property developer he had no experience with. Tu'inukuafe's house was uninsured when it burnt down, forcing him and his family to live with family until they found somewhere else. The Blues, who have been heavily backed by *****s 8Xbet, are seeking their first win of Super Rugby when they take on South Africa's Lions at Eden Park on Friday morning (NZT).

My wife was saying you need to get this sorted because it's affecting us.
Tu'inukuafe told of how he considered retiring from rugby due to his persistent lower-back problems, but it was his wife who stopped him from throwing in the towel. My wife was saying you need to get this sorted because it's affecting us, he told Newshub. It's affected a lot of people - my whānau and friends as well. I had to get it sorted because I just wanted everyone happy.

If I had an injury they would pull me out, but they didn't say a word
Tu'inukuafe said he didn't speak out about his injury because he feared it would cost him his place in New Zealand's World Cup squad. If I had an injury they would pull me out, but they didn't say a word, he said. If I had spoken up earlier, maybe things would have been different.

It was very hard because I didn't really know what the problem was.
I thought it was just a sore back so I pushed through it, but when it started getting bad enough that I wasn't able to train at all for about a month, we had an MRI done. And that's when we found out there was a bit of a bulge in my disc.

I could play on with no problem and then something would happen
At training I’d be doing a light jog and something would start happening, I couldn’t get it right. And then when we were in camp, it was getting worse and worse. It got to where I couldn’t get up off my couch in my living room at home. It wasn’t even rugby-related stuff that was causing it – just day-to-day things like turning over in bed and lifting kids out of cots.

When you're playing in a team sport, your identity is wrapped up in that.
After suffering with back pain for years, All Blacks prop Karl Tu'inukuafe thought his career was over. But after extensive rehabilitation and an attitude change, he's on track to feature in Steve Hansen's Rugby World Cup squad. We spoke to him about what drove him away from rugby and how he turned things around.

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